


Revenge Is Best Served Cold

by AndreaLyn



Series: Marathon [4]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If House pushes and pushes until Chase explodes, will it be in a flurry of bad ties?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revenge Is Best Served Cold

**Day Twenty Seven**

House is running out of people to blame for the note left on the autopsy reports. Sure, he can blame Wilson and it would be easy, because hey, Wilson had written the note in the first place and if it wasn’t for his _idiocy_ , then House wouldn’t have a pissed-off wallaby-enthusiast whose nation flushed its toilets the wrong way. It could be worse. It could have been Cameron who’d found that note, and then who knows what kind of apocalyptic horrors would be visited upon them.

 _Very, very important note to self: make sure Cameron doesn’t see that file._

He can blame Andie herself, for doing something so _idiotic_ and _litigious_ like having Chase kiss her. And he can blame Chase, which is oh so easy and oh so appealing, because what kind of _idiot_ indulges a nine-year-old in all that ‘kiss me’ crap? The kind of idiot House is sleeping with, apparently.

Maybe he should just take one gigantic sticky-note and cover the whole world in it. They’re all idiots at the heart of it.

*

Wilson doesn’t turn out to be the best source to turn to on this particular subject and it takes House about two-point-eight seconds to realize his presence is unwanted as he leans into Wilson’s office, waiting for an answer to his question – a question which, incidentally, has moved Wilson to pinch the bridge of his nose, sigh tiredly four times, and shake his head.

He’s still sputtering, and House takes that as a sign to come inside, close the door, and make himself comfortable.

“You know,” Wilson starts conversationally -- sounding a bit bitter -- as House starts toying around with a little hand-carved idol on Jimmy’s desk. “Most people take that reaction as a sign to go away.”

“And most people answer questions when asked,” House replies easily, not even looking up. “I really hope a kid did this, because if it was anyone older than twelve, I think maybe you owe them some of their functional brain cells back.” The toy gets swiped away from him and House looks up, shooting Wilson a scowl. “Oh, come on,” he protests. “It’s a simple question!”

Wilson sets the figurine back on his desk with a little ‘oomph’ to it, more than House expects and uh oh, looks like mean old Dr. House asked the wrong question. He rolls his eyes and waits for the inevitable scolding. He’d penciled it in a day late. He’ll have to go back to the office, change that ‘Wednesday 10AM’ to a ‘Tuesday, 9:45’ when this is all done.

“You,” Wilson points accusingly. “You asked me if you could just start sleeping around with anyone you pleased and still get away with it!”

House thinks about his question, checking off all the parts Wilson’s already mentioned. “Don’t forget the part where I’m deliberately doing it…”

“To piss off Chase, yes, I got that,” Wilson cuts him off, staring at him incredulously. “Are you _trying_ to make him explode?”

“You think it’d be in pieces of ugly ties if he did?” House muses curiously. Because that might be worth it, just for that visual. He wants to know Chase’s breaking point, plain and simple. So far, it’d taken a death in the family to move him to snapping, but what would move him to action?

House wants to know.

“Just…go,” Wilson orders as he points to the door. “And don’t cause any implosions,” he adds, still sounding stuck in a state of perpetual disbelief, like being House’s friend for so many years _still_ hasn’t sunk in.

*

Life, when it really comes down to it, is all about timing.

Like how House had called the escort agency and had them send over a blonde girl whose name was Chastity – oh, irony; he could just live with it forever and never get bored. She hadn’t understood why House just wanted to play checkers, but had obliged as he jumped her in every way possible except for the very literal way.

Well, and she gave him a handjob. He still wanted to get what he was paying for.

He’d called her to show up at nine o’clock. He’d invited Chase over for eleven.

And really, there’s nothing greater in the world than collecting that last kiss that House’s money had paid for while Chase comes wandering down the halls, stopping in his tracks like the Little Engine That Couldn’t and lilting to the side, like just the _sight_ of House with his tongue down a call girl’s throat was enough to make his internal balance go wonky.

He doesn’t close his eyes during the kiss, pats the girl on her ass as she departs and smirks at Chase. “I’m ready for round two whenever you are,” he promises.

And he waits.

Tick tock, tick tock, the clock behind him might as well scream, because this is all research in House’s little mad shop of experiments and whether Chase stays or goes is paramount in this exercise. House wonders if it’ll be this easy, if just the hint that House’s attentions are drifting elsewhere will push Chase off the edge, into that oblivion known as ‘I can’t take this anymore, I can’t take _you_ anymore!’

He stays.

“She wasn’t a natural blonde,” is all he says as he pushes past House, like he’s about to show him what a _real_ blonde looks like.

*

Chase mumbles something when he comes into work two days from then, but House doesn’t pay much mind, just tells Chase that he has research duty while Cameron has lab duty and Foreman has ‘run as fast as you can from the cops after you break in’ duty.

They settle in, doing the morning’s routine of ‘grab some coffee, spread the books out, have a dirty fantasy or three’ before getting into the thick of the work. House keeps the door between the offices open and grabs the nearest rubber ball, hooking up his iPod to the speakers and blasting the first song he can find.

Which may or may not just happen to be “Bye, Bye, Bye” (which is only on there, House would tell you, because he had some research to do into the psyche of the typical teenage girl and why she would ever, ever in a million years willingly play that whiny drivel into her cortex).

And with the ball, he starts throwing it against the nearest wall out of rhythm with the song, again and again and again.

It takes about three minutes for Chase to pop his head around the door and to hiss at House like he’s been possessed by either a really angry demon or woman experiencing PMS: “I told you I had a migraine!” he spits out. “Could you please turn that f… _thing_ down!” He bites the curse off before it escapes, like saying it will summon Cuddy.

House takes a moment to deliberate. “No,” he finally says, throwing the ball at the glass beside Chase, reveling in watching him wince in pain. “Back to work.”

*

He wonders if maybe Chase will come unhinged when led to the very edge of sexual tension and never let over the edge. House has had lots of practice in the past with bringing a person to the cliff and letting them fall off, but right now, the way he’s touching Chase, he’s keeping him back.

The touches are always just a bit too light. The kisses just a bit too weak. The clothes are still all on and House has got an alarm set to go off – literally – at midnight, like the princess is about to turn into the pumpkin and all her glass slippers are going to get all smashed in the process.

“House,” Chase pleads, groaning a little as his hands move under House’s shirt and try to push it off, but he stops that before it can really get started. He grabs hold of Chase’s wrists tightly and pushes them off of him. “Please,” comes the next round of begging, low and guttural and desperate. “I will do _anything_.”

And that’s the best part. House knows that and more.

The hands get moved back and House just continues with the too-light-touches and the not-enough-kisses.

“Fuck you,” Chase mumbles petulantly, quiet enough to not be directed at House, but more than loud enough to be heard.

He’s definitely going to pay for that.

*

House leans against the doorframe with his wallet opening, mentally going through the contents. Credit cards, fake ID’s, baggies of drugs, a Vicodin stashed in there just in case, about fifty bucks cash that’s his, seventy that belongs to Wilson, twenty from a bet with Foreman, twenty-five from the same bet with Cameron, and a button.

The button has a long and complicated history to it, but he keeps it nonetheless and doesn’t tell the owner of the broken shirt that he’s missing anything. It gives great nape.

“So, you said…” He flicks through the bills.

The pizza-guy on his doorstep looks pissed when House glances up, but he knows there’s someone _way_ more pissed off and who’s just a little bit further away.

“Twenty three bucks, seventeen cents,” the pizza-guy says, chomping on a bit of gum.

House takes his time digging for the right change and handing off a fifty cent tip. He thinks about snatching it back when the delivery guy mutters a profanity against House, but really, this isn’t about the pizza or the service.

He carries the two pizzas back into the bedroom, kicking the door shut with the ankle of his good leg and already munching on a slice. He offers a box to Chase on the bed, who is currently all tied up with some scarves House kept stored in the back of his closet. “It’s good,” he says, encouragingly.

Chase just glares at him and bucks against the bed a little more.

Good. He needs the outlet for his frustration.

*

“Whatever you’re doing to Chase needs to stop.”

House pauses and looks at his bills. See, _this_ was why he didn’t go through his own mail. It started talking to him and in that tone where it sounded just like Cuddy and developed breasts. He holds up a request for a consult to his ear. “What’s that?” he asks, squinting a little in thought. “He’s my employee and I should get to do whatever I want to him?”

He turns to find Cuddy and her breasts staring right up at him.

“Yes?” he prods, speaking to the breasts. They’re by far the more interesting part of her. “What am I getting yelled at for?”

“Whatever,” she repeats, sounding frustrated which tells House that he’s already hit Mission Accomplished and it’s not even nine AM yet, “you are doing to Chase, cut it out.” She offers him a tired and pleading look. “He’s scowling with the patients, he’s tired, and he’s complaining about you.”

“Actually complaining?” House asks, wondering if this is it.

“Well,” Cuddy admits. “He’s complaining. I assume it’s because of you.”

House tucks the mail under his arm, leaning on his cane as he walks away from Cuddy without making a single promise, remark, or attempt at trying. “Come talk to me when he’s actually complaining about me!”

*

Ten PM. Chase’s beeper is paged.

Eleven PM. Chase’s beeper is paged.

House has had a cup of coffee and doesn’t have to go to work the next day, but he’s calling in Chase’s number and seeing if he shows up at the nurse’s station to find the next brief snippet of orders (inane crap like changing sheets, but enough to keep him in the hospital for about a half hour, only to leave and be summoned back).

Midnight on the dot. Chase’s beeper is paged.

It’s one-fifteen when the phone-call comes from the nurse’s station to inform him that Doctor Chase had left his pager with them and the nurses apologize for the inconvenience, but he needs a nap in the on-call room. House very politely requests that someone go wake him up. He doesn’t relent until they do. He informs them that it’s a critical life and death emergency and Chase absolutely _has to_ come to the phone.

It takes five minutes, but it works.

“H’lo,” Chase mumbles sleepily on the other end.

“I think maybe I’m ready to give in,” House remarks. “You awake enough to come over here and get it up?”

His answer is a dial-tone and when Chase shows up at his place by way of a taxicab thirty minutes later, House just yawns and glances at his watch. “Don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve got my OC marathon tomorrow.”

Chase glares at him and pushes into the house anyway.

He sleeps on the couch that night.

*

House arrives to work to find the dozen bouquets of flowers arrived, sitting on the table in all their horrendous glory. They’re repellant, but they’ve all got cards in them like he ordered. He waits for Foreman and Cameron to show up and leans over to snatch up the card before Chase can destroy all the evidence.

“To my snuggle-wuggly-bottom,” he reads aloud. “Love, Cameron.”

Cameron’s eyes widen and she nearly lunges across the table. “What!” she exclaims in alarm, catching Chase’s gaze. “Chase, I swear, I didn’t do this.” She’s nearly begging, which satisfies House to have caused a little bit of collateral damage in the process. Foreman pretty much doesn’t believe someone in this equation and he obviously knows someone higher-up is responsible.

Chase just stares in horror at the array of lilies and carnations and baby’s breath. “What am I going to do with these?”

“Seventy dollars worth of flowers,” House points out, sipping his cup of coffee. “Be a shame to just throw them out.”

And wow. Not one, not two, but **three** glares from the table on that one. He’s improving his aim when it comes to pissing people off. There’s a great splatter effect he’s got going on.

*

House is starting to get a little bit frustrated himself. There’s no earthly reason for Chase to be holding out for so long. He should’ve folded like a hand of cards days ago. God knows that his spine isn’t strong enough to support this kind of standing up for himself. Maybe Foreman and Cameron are sneaking him support on the side. It’d explain a lot.

So just to screw with Chase’s head, he does something nice. He lets him go home early, gives him a container of Wilson’s macademia-chip-pancakes (stolen, obviously), and tells Chase to take the next day off.

It works, because Chase is more paranoid than House has seen him in a very, very long time.

*

House limps into Jimmy’s patient’s room, ignoring the large bouquet of flowers in the corner that smells distinctly of lilies. “You rang?” he inquires, putting on his best Lurch impression and wiggling his pager.

Wilson glances up from where he’s inspecting the comatose patient’s heart rate. “I think you won,” he remarks.

House finds this all very, very intriguing because he never heard any sonic boom at any point that would’ve been Chase just imploding on the spot in a confetti-filled fit of frustration. He closes the sliding door behind him and sits, leaning his chin on his cane in his best impression of a thirteen-year-old girl. “And?”

“Chase showed up at my place last night,” Wilson informs House. “Thinking that you have some mad and wild scheme going on.” He scoffs. “Do you know how hard it was not to just tell him how very right he was?”

“And did you?”

Wilson pauses, like he’s trying to draw the moment out for suspense. Then, he sighs and House knows he’s won this one. “No,” Wilson admits. “I kept your stupid secret to myself.” He leads the charge out of the room as they head to the nurse’s station where there are two large bouquets of carnations framing the desk. “Let up on him. Or give him something. You’d think he was a mare in heat the way he was last night.”

“My staff is obviously sex-crazed,” House remarks evenly. If he’s that desperate, there’s always Cuddy. She’d probably be up for a round in the sack. Maybe it might even take the edge off her moods.

Wilson shoots House a look. One of _those_ looks. A capital ‘L’ look.

Wait…

“You didn’t sleep with him, right?” House verifies.

Looks like Jimmy’s in the mood to play with House, because he just shrugs like it’s all a game. And in this case, Wilson can actually lie just a touch better than Chase that House has to doubt it, just for a little.

“He did bring me flowers,” Wilson adds. “Baby’s breath and tulips. Not bad.”

House would know. Seeing as they came from him and all. He scowls and turns to figure out his next plan of attack.

*

Chase shows up at his place that night after House finds a bouquet of flowers on his doorstep. He wonders just how many people got these, but he’s not going to say anything. He is surprised, however, to hear Chase trying to knock down the door. He opens it, just in a pair of pajamas and an old t-shirt and scowls, doing his best Mean Old Man look. “What?” he snaps.

Chase doesn’t say ‘hello’ and he doesn’t do anything except shove House against the door and kiss him so furiously that for a second, House wonders if the world’s ending because the way Chase is shoving his tongue down House’s throat, you’d think there was no tomorrow.

He eases away, gasping a little to catch his breath and House notices that Chase never looks better than he does when he’s trying to prove a point.

“Hello to you too,” House mutters.

“I’m not waiting anymore,” is all Chase says and he closes the door behind him on the way out.

House doesn’t like the sound of it at all, because it sounds all too much like the sound of the string around House’s finger named ‘Chase’ just came all loose, in all different directions. Even though House calls Chase’s cell, he never gets the other man to pick up and he only wonders whose place he went to in his fit of snapping.

*

When he walks into work the next day, everyone is a suspect, from the nurses to his own team to Cuddy to Wilson to the receptionist and hell, why not include the accountant in the puzzle. She’s a slut in House’s overactive imagination.

When he walks into the conference room, there’s Chase, sitting back and smirking up at House like he’s won the world in some kind of contest. House just rolls his eyes and does his best to ignore him.

And wonders who Chase broke with.

He mentally puts money on a woman in his head. They definitely go for that.

He turns back to Chase to see if he can get anymore clues, but he’s just met with another grin and Chase orally fellating a pencil between his teeth, cocking a brow up at him. Sure, the confidence is a little attractive (and only a very, very little bit), but it won’t last long.

House’ll figure it out. He always does solve the puzzle.

THE END


End file.
